The objective of this blog to share development in rural areas across the world. It is a space where scientists, professionals and anyone interested can share cases studies, methodologies and developments both from the South and the North.

Saturday, December 30, 2017

It has been a very busy end of the year, and i am just noticing that my blog remained silent for two moths and many of the interesting learning will only appear in 2018. But as the end of the the year approaches, it is time to reflect about 2017 first. It was a year that took me to Burkina Faso and Ethiopia twice for the CLEANED project that aims to assess environmental trade-off of intensifying livestock value chains in developing countries, to Somaliland where i have been setting up a GIS lab and working with the local government on the livestock sector, and to Northern Kenya.

So what did 2017 bring? for me it was the year where I engaged with pastoralists across Africa, in Burkina Faso, Somaliland and Kenya and discovered a fascinating world, where all the logic I know about was challenged.

Pastoralists have a very different way to see the world than the smallholders farmers I usually work with. And it might sound stupid, but because pastoralists are moving with their animals in very harsh environment, they are not really interested in accumulating "stuff" that is heavy to carry around and they are used to live with almost nothing. This is why many of the incentives that we usually use, such as money or in kind just do not work.

Pastoralists value their community and their animals. Therefore, working on the relationship with these communities and build up trust is the better incentive than some materialist item. Also, I have discovered that pastoralists have their own information sharing mechanism that they have developed and improved over centuries and nobody is waiting for any phone app to bring a revolution, they have the information they need. Also information is shared within relevant networks within clans, and there are good reasons why that information is not public : governments do not know how many pastoralists are crossing boarders (a concept that is nonexistent to many pastoralists) and therefore cannot tax animals going from one country to the next, others clans who might compete on ressource might not yet know where the good pastures are. So bringing digital products to this world might do more harm than good, and a better understanding of what information can be shared with whom is necessary before thinking of digital products.

Across all countries, pastoralism is under pressure. There is often conflict on land among pastoralist clans themselves, as in many places the number of livestock is above the carrying capacity of the land which has led to serious land degradation and a resulting lack of available feed and fodder. Also there are conflicts between pastoralist and crop farmers, on who has the right to use the land. Pastoralism is often seen as an old-fashioned lifestyle that is doomed. But especially, in Western Africa there is a strong movement to fight for the right for such a traditional lifestyle.

Meeting pastoralists and working with anthropologists this year have changed the way i look at agricultural intensification in Sub-Saharan Africa. Clearly, there is an urgent need to increase food production in Africa where population will double over the next 30 years. High potential area, where rain is abundant and soils are fertile, will have to play a big role in producing more food, also smallholder farmers in those area are keen intensifying there production that they believe will bring more income. But, in dry low potential areas it is less clear what intensification of production can bring, and people making use of these area have a right to choose their lifestyle, even if it goes against the mainstream thinking. Who are we to push pastoralists towards something they do not believe in for the sake of feeding the world?

Clearly, in the transition zone, between the high potential area and dry rangeland, conflict between the two world emerges. In those zones, land use planning and clear rules that regulate fair access to land and its biomass need to be implemented so that both pastoralists and non-pastoralist can co-habitate. Combined with efforts of land rehabilitation, and emerging opportunities outside of the agricultural sector that can offer jobs to those who do not want to remain a pastoralist, might support a productive and sustainable traditional pastoral production that sustains a decent livelihood for those who choose to live in this way.

As we move to 2018, let's keep an open mind to those who go through life differently and learn to appreciate what they can teach us, the same way pastoralists have reshaped my understanding of agricultural intensification this year. I remain with thanking you for following this blog, that in the meanwhile has up to 2500 clicks a month, and wish you a happy new year!

Note that all pictures in this post are taken from here. They are made Gille Coulon, an award winning photographer. He has exhibited these pictures at the "centre culturel francais" in Ouagadougou, an exhibition that was lucky to see during one of my many visits in Burkina Faso.

Friday, November 10, 2017

I just arrived in Burkina Faso on a long trip from Nairobi to Addis, then to Lome and finally to Ouagadougou. A long journey on Ethiopian Airline, which is not something i usually look forward to. But this time, i was positively surprised at the level of the in flight magazing Selmata that has a long article on Big Data, a quite astonishing topic for a country that for long was lagging behind in the tech scene.

The article is about Gro Inelligence, a company that i was not aware off, and is funded by Ethiopian (but interestingly with an office in Nairobi)

Gro intelligences addresses the challenge of the information gap in agriculture. From their website they sell themselves as follows : "We built Gro, a data product that enables the discovery and analysis of
an unprecedented amount of data in the global agriculture industry. Gro
collects and synthesizes trillions of data points from disparate and
often times near impossible to use sources, allowing users to paint a
clear, comprehensive, and timely picture of the factors influencing the
agricultural commodity they are interested in."

Their products are mainly crop focused, there is no livestock related product. And as pointed out in the Selmata magazine, this type of near real time data without validation on the ground still has many issues. Yet it is an interesting player on the ground.

Wednesday, October 25, 2017

So it gave me in rare opportunity to travel from Hargeisa, the capital of Somaliland the Sheikh and discover a country that only few have seen.

Let me take you on my trip and show you the typical landscapes.

As you might already know, Somaliland went trough a terrible drought resulting in a famine. By time we arrived it had rained, and our driver told us that now he has enough feed for his animals. His English was too bad to discover how many animals he has lost. But looking at these empty landscapes, there is very little livestock, for a country that relies for 70% of its GDP on livestock.

the few livestock we have seen

including some camels

It was also the opportunity to cross validate what we had learned through past research on the ground. It was told many time that charcoal production leads to deforestation. We could not find the deforestation with satellite image, but now we have seen the charcoal on the ground.

After the training we went to Berbera, the port city with hope to see more about that booming livestock industry. But because there is a livestock export ban, very little is happening.

the empty livestock truck, there is no business because of the export ban

We also passed the Somaliland president on the way, in a huge convoy full of military.

What we think was the presidential car, part of a huge convoy

Yes, Somaliland is probably not the safest country in the world, but it
does not feel as dangerous as Nairobi by night. Nevertheless, we got a
an armed military body guard with us during the whole trip.

our personal armed body guard

We hope he and the driver enjoyed the beach too.

On our way back to Hargeisa, we capture some of these fantastic Somali landscapes, thinking about how beautiful this country is, and its potential for tourism wouldn't it be a failed state...

I hope you have enjoyed this virtual trip ! And who knows, maybe one day...

We have all recently seen the images from hungry pastoralists in the news, NGO fundraising and facebook campaigns. It is great that people support immediate food help to people who need it most, but it remains just a short term intervention that does not really allow this young country to develop.

This movie shows how the European Union has invested in the veterinary school i am going to in order to build up local skills and competences for the livestock sector, that represents at least 60% of Somalilands' GDP. Now you are probably wondering what GIS has to do with livestock? Many livestock diseases are depending on the biophysical context. Even in small countries like Somaliland not the same interventions are needed in all parts. Also livestock is moving, starting to plan land use, optimize the route and the veterinary post will become more and more important, but no one has the basic skills to do some simple geographical planning.
So we have been asked to give an introductory training next week. So remain posted, more about Somaliland will come soon.

We have hired facilitators/reporters to work with smaller groups of participants, who speak the local language. It also means, that we had to trust the facilitators to do their job well, as we had little means to cross-check what is going on during the group discussions. For example, in Ethiopia the workshop was held in Tigrinay, which is spoken in Tigray but is not the national language, which in Amharic. So in Ethiopia even our national partner who helps us organize the workshop is not able to understand what is going on.

all documentation is on poster so that power cuts do not disturb the training

A huge responsibility therefore weighs on the hired group facilitators/reporters. To make sure that they get the skill to do their job well, we implemented a two days training. The first day aimed at giving the facilitators the skills to "give everyone in their group to do the best of their thinking". This part of the training were based on Sam Kaner'sbook and approach, and we mainly focused on active listening. On the second day, we when through a "dry run" of the workshop, to show facilitators/reporters what their job is, what we expect from them, and which results we would like to reach.

training active listening in Ethiopia

During the workshop, facilitator/reporter were assigned to discussion groups in pairs, so that one can facilitate and the other take notes, as well as always being two in difficult situations.

drawing out techniques in French

After the workshops, facilitators and reporters wrote a report about what was discussed and what has happened in their groups in English or in French. This is often our only way get access to the information that was shared in many different languages.

Training in Burkina Faso

The facilitators/reporters did a fantastic job in all three countries : they had to learn new skills and understand their role in a very short time, handle difficult situation is their groups and remember to report everything with as many details as possible. They are key to our success and to the data we can collect.

facilitators at work in Burkina Faso

Let me take this opportunity to thank the three teams in all 3 countries for their enthusiasms to take up a challenging task and the great job that they have done to support us.

Monday, September 11, 2017

During my last workshop in Burkina Faso, a stakeholder category were pastoralist, this are livestock keeper that at least part of the year have migrating animals. In Burkina Faso, i went to have a mint tea with representative of the Peul community, one of the pastoral communities in Burkina Faso, in order to understand how they think and how we can somehow figure out how many animals they have.

the peul community discussing during the workshop

Here is what i have learned :
Firstly Peuls will never about livestock numbers, this is a taboo as it is for western cultures to talk about salaries. This is out of fear to be taxed when crossing different countries with their cattle. It was therefore very difficult to ask them about livestock numbers.
However, they talk happily about what they define as troupeau. Though troupeau means herd in French, the word cannot be translated.

taken from http://tendancefloue.net/gillescoulon/series/transhumance/

This is why:
A Peul household is complex, as it is generally composed of a head of household with several wives who has several children. Every child at its birth is given a female cattle, and all its offspring will belong to the child when he or she marries. As a result, every animal has a clearly defined owner within the household and women own livestock too. We will refer to all animals that belong to any of the household member as the overall household herd.

Transhumances routes in Western Africa

In order to manage risk, the head of the household split the overall household herd into different sub-herd, that the Peul refer to as troupeau, which will follow different transhumance routes with different herders (who can be a member of the family or hired). Also, different household may pool their different troupeaux to go on a transhumance route with the same herder. As part of a risk mitigation strategy, the Peul nowadays have what they call a “troupeau laitier” that is a troupeau of female animals that give milk and therefore do not go on transhumance. This allows part of the family, mainly women and children to live a sedentary life and live from the sale of milk.
Next to the dairy cows, the weak animals also remain at home, they will be fattened over a certain amount of months to be sold for meat. These animals are not considered as troupeau as they are very few and can be asked about the number of animals.

taken from http://tendancefloue.net/gillescoulon/series/transhumance/

What does this implies?

Most transhumant families have a non-transhumant troupeau that stays in Bama the whole year long, these are mostly lactating cows and therefore is also referred as troupeau laitier (the milking herd).

Depending on the wealth of the household, there might be several other troupeaux somewhere on a transhumance route

Herds observed in a given location on a transhumance route is likely to be only part of the overall herd of one household, but likely to be composed of troupeaux from different households

Fattening animals are not considered to be part of a troupeau and can be asked about in terms of number of animals.

a scientist trying desperately to ask the right question!

And now imagine a scientist coming asking any one in this system about how many animal he or she owns?

Wednesday, September 6, 2017

It is a while since i have been looking in farm diversification in Europe as a way to support livelihoods of farming families. Yesterday night, the Swiss TV has shown a very interesting comparison between Italy and Switzerland in farm diversification in agri- tourism.

Swiss farmers diversify much less than their neigbors, because the return to labor in agro-tourism is low compared to other farm activities. In Tirol, next door, farmer are benefiting massively from agro-tourism and expand. So how comes that their return on labor in tourism is so much higher compared to other activities?

This small feature suggests that farmers in Tirol are very well organized, and promote themselves as a group. They have adjusted their other activities in a way that it is easy to combine with agro-tourism, because they clearly have a big demand from tourism.
A model for Switzerland ? i guess we are trapped here between demand creation (is there demand in Switzerland where everything is so expensive for agro -tourism?) and between farmers starting to show innovation. Clearly there are very few farmers in Switzerland to took up the bet of of agro-tourism. Why not work with them to develop it further?

For Atbsi, participants came up with a series very different indicators and a series of very similar indicators.

Some of the common indicators, are better education for children, better mobility as well as better accessible technologies to make life easier.

But what was the most interesting part of the Ethiopian workshop, we presence of very young participants. I always knew that, in Ethiopia, it is fully acceptable that women can take their young children to workshops so that they do not need to arrange child care. So we had a 2 year old girl that joint her grand mother to the workshop.

The youngest participant with her grand-mother

Also another illiterate lady took her 12 year old daughter to the workshop, because the daughter can read for her. Though we really try to make our workshops accessible to illiterate people by using images and colors, it was not a bad strategy. It was also for us the opportunity to ask a girl about what she aims at in life. She told us that a better future for her is a world where she can support her parents so that they do not need to work so hard anymore. She is also hopping to get good education so that she will be able to support her parents.

The second youngest participant on the left, she is supporting her illiterate mum with reading.

At the end of the workshop, we asked the girl separately about her evaluation, and she mentioned that she was very proud that her personal opinion was asked and listened to.

It was a great opportunity to hear from the next generation about what they value.

It is one of the classical northern Ethiopia success story of watershed rehabilitation. More than 25 years ago, farmers were poor, and regularly had full crop failure or because of drought or because of flooding.

About 20 years ago the community started rehabilitate their area. They started with re-planting tree and bushed on the hills and within the delta.

infiltration pond in the forest

Today, where there used to be bare land, there is a forest. There are clear rules on who has the right to use the forest. The area where we were standing was made available for land owners, while on the other side the area was given to landless people. The forest is used in different ways : to keep bees, to feed leaves to livestock during the dry season, to collect wood and provides benefits to people.

infiltration pit

The delta is also where water used to accumulate and the lack of infiltration used to lead to devastating floods. Today, ponds and pits collected the water from the hills and let the water infiltrate slowly. No floods were experiences over the last years.

a well in the lowland of the landscape

More importantly, as a result of the water infiltration, ground water started to reappear in the lower part of the watershed. Today, farmers have shallow wells with water the whole year round. Around the shallow wells, today households have home gardens where vegetables and fruits are grown for home consumption. Home gardens have therefore a big impact on food diversity and therefore not only contribute to food security but also to improved nutrition on one of the area where people used to be malnourished.

guava orchards

Taking a second look at the landscape, one can also sees tree orchards with papaya, guava and citrus appearing that are bigger than the home gardens. Farmer have invested water and effort to grow more fruits, and some of them today make good income from selling fruits to Wurko and Mekelle.

the community leader explaining the interventions done to rehabilitate the watershed

The community leader told us that at the beginning, 25 years ago, few people thought that if was worth investing into rehabilitation, but they had nothing to loose, so they have tried, and they have won. Today, there is sufficient water the whole year round, that can insure production of high value crops such as fruits. They are proud to have made it, and are happy to show case how watershed management can change lifes.

Traditionally, economist used GDP at national level, and income or ownership of assets to measure success. More money and more assets means wealth and therefore is success. Yet, the people we work with value many different things, such as family life, the access to traditional food, or getting a given position within the community. So success is more than money and we need to identify how this success can be measured.

two ladies making sure that their vision is taken into account into the future storylines

On the second day of the workshop, my colleagues of mine asked the stakeholder participant in stakeholder groups with similar interests to write down the story of one or two successful virtual characters, and describe a usual day in 2030.From that storyline, participants will have identify what are the indicators that the two characters are successful.

In Burkina Faso, the dairy processing lady was married to the butcher of the area. Their life will be shaped by a traditional Muslim life rhythm. Children will have access to schools, family will be supported by hired staff, and mobility will be improved as the family will own a car or at least a motor bike.

storyline from the pastoral group

the second part of the storyline

For the pastoral community, the successful life meant that they could maintain their traditional lifestyle but also with some modernization, such as aluminum mobile parks, motorbikes for improved mobility and cleared access rights to pasture.
From those storylines, many indicators could be identified. Participants then made an individual vote for the most important ones. Interesting in Burkina Faso, these were religious indicators, such as being able to visit Mecca, being able to follow Muslim rules and improved mobility, whereas in Ethiopia, high education for children and the adoption of new technologies came out more importantly.

The selected indicators from the different groups in Burkina Faso

To me, it was a new approach to get information from stakeholder about what they value, in a way that is very appealing and easy to stakeholder. I am quite impressed by the results we got.